4 Bike Performance Hacks

Welcome to another episode of the Get Fast podcast brought to you by Tribala Coaching, where we help triathletes and cyclists like you train smarter to race faster. You are joined as always by your hosts, Australian Ironman champion and four times Nationals Masters cycling champion Gerard Donnelly. And I am Jordan Donnelly. If you want to get our expert secrets cheat sheet, that is a cheat sheet of the very best tips and advice the experts on our podcast have said to help you train smarter to race faster. Just go to getfastpodcast.com that's getfastpodcast.com where we interview current pro athletes, former pro athletes, current Olympians, former Olympians, doctors, nutrition experts and a whole range of guests where we have compiled their best tips into one cheat sheet. So if you want it, go to getfastpodcast.com so dad, in today's episode we are talking about the three biggest bike leg mistakes triathletes can make and you might be making and what you should be doing instead. So take us through mistake number one. Talk to me about getting the right bike and having the right bike set up.

Great way to start, Jordan. Definitely. If you're thinking about doing an Ironman and the difference between a sprint race and an Ironman is pretty, pretty vast, you can get away with a very average bike in a sprint race compared to an Ironman, a 20 kilometer event compared to 180. The time spent on the bike is going to be extremely different. So you need to be comfortable on the bike that you've got and you know, basically everybody wants it to be fast. So you need to really think clearly about what bike you're going to purchase and if your bike that you've got is not up to standard. And what do I mean by that if you've got a bike? The great example is if in 1988 when I raced in Kona, I had a road bike with no clip on bars. It was just basically a road bike. And the difference between riding that bike then and riding a time trial bike that I have now, even though I was at the peak of my career as a 28 year old, I'm possibly riding faster now on a better bike. So don't underestimate and how different and how faster you will go with the correct bike. So getting a really good fast bike. And most brands have got the top of the range bikes and you know, if you're, you like a particular brand, then go for it. I mean, obviously we love the giants, so that's the brand that we use, the Trinity. And there's many Time trials world titles have been 1 Dumalone 1 his world titles on a trinity. So I think the bike selection is really key. It's got to suit you and it's also, you've got to fit the bike well. So the bike fit is really the next step. So get yourself a really good bike, get yourself some decent wheels, but get yourself set up on the bike. That is crucial. You can have the best bike, fastest bike, if you're sitting really awkwardly on it, uncomfortably not being able to generate the power you want in the position you are in, it doesn't matter how good a bike you've got, you won't go as fast as you want.

You've had that experience, haven't you, where you've had an incorrect bike set up and it cost you a lot of time.

Look, I was just thinking about it, Jordan, when we're talking about the key components of the bike in an Ironman or in a triathlon. And I certainly, as I've aged, my body has changed its shape. So what setup I had maybe five years ago might not be that relevant to me now. Because getting older, some people say you get shorter as you get older. So that could be a possibility, that I'm sitting in a different position because of the way my body's degenerating over its. I don't like to say that, but it could possibly be, you know, as you get older, your bike position changes. As you lose more weight, you're able to get in a more aggressive position. If you're practicing flexibility, you might be able to get more aggressive. So the bike fit is really key. And I would advise and encourage people to source out a really good local bike fit that they know has had good success with some athletes or some age groupers or even elite. And, yeah, make sure you make that a priority.

So what do you say to someone who says, I want a good bike, but I can't afford to spend the money on the top of the range?

Great. Well, the top of the range would have the best components, best frame. So the first thing you would search for is a frame that's similar to that, the components. I could not tell you whether Shimano 105 Ultegra or Dura Ace is on my bike, I just can't. If someone blindfolded me and said, here's a bike and tell me what running gear is on it, but the difference in price is significant. The running gear is if. If you can afford it, great. And look, you know, we're talking mechanical Di2 options, again, you can still get by with mechanical just the way we used to ride and the difference in price is incredible. So you can still get decent equipment. If you're just willing to not get the top of the top of the range, it still runs effectively.

Yeah. So you talk about also with the bike equipment, making sure that once you've got the right bike, making it specific to the course that you're going to be racing on all the courses.

Yeah, Such a good, good point to raise. And look, most triathletes would, would definitely do a range of courses. So, you know, what are we really specifically talking about here? Well, mainly the cassette. The. The range you've got on your rear cassette and obviously on the front derailleur. So if you wanted to have a course that's got, you know, 2,000 meters of climbing in it, and there are some Ironman races that do have that, you really need to have a gear ratio that's going to enable you to spin those legs. You don't want to be grinding your legs in an Ironman because you still have to run. It's not just a swim bike, it's a swim bike run. So it's important to select the gear ratio that's going to keep your legs fresh and you should be doing that in training anyway. But look at the course change, cassettes depending on the course. If you're doing a pancake flat course, you don't need a 30, 36, 28. It's just a waste of, waste of gears. On a flat course, you want to have all the cassettes close, all the rings close to each other. You know, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21. No, no gaps. But you can't get that unless you made your own. But, but that's the idea. Whereas on a, on a hilly course, you definitely need a 28 so that you can keep your legs at a cadence above 80, preferably 90 on the climbs. Whereas if you've got a hilly course and you're in a 21, you could possibly be riding 60-70 RPM, which is really going to hurt your legs for the run.

A lot of people probably have never even considered their cadence in training or racing. So that is a big factor. And if you don't know what any of that means, you don't know how to get your gear set up. Right. That's where you need to enlist in a coach or enlist in someone to help you with that bike setup.

Yeah, and it's a really important topic we talk about whenever I'm giving people their pre race preparation. Okay, you're doing, say you're doing New Zealand Ironman compared to Busselton just for the local market here, Busselton's pancake flat. Whereas New Zealand's got lots of rises, so is Port Mac. Cairns has got some variations in the course, but they are all different. And you would always have a different setup for each one of those courses.

Absolutely. So talking about equipment, what about your clothes you wear and what you decide to swim in, biking and running?

Yep. For the bike, you really want to be as comfortable as possible. If you're in a hot race, you would probably want to have your shoulders covered so you're not going to get sunburnt. And look, there is fast suits going around that really do improve the speed that you're riding at. But you can't be overheating in a fast suit. A long sleeve fast suit. I just think as a happy medium, between getting really fast equipment that costs a lot and being comfortable so you need to be able to breathe and get a suit that you're going to race in, that you've trained in and not get something first time on the day that's brand new.

So you wouldn't want to trade off getting something faster for the potential of overcooking yourself because you'll just lose the time that you're trying to make.

Definitely the minute you've overcooked, you'll slow down anyway, so the fast soup becomes irrelevant, which brings to the next one, which is the helmet, which is. I think that's what you were going to ask. Yeah. So people say to me, oh, you've got to have, you know, helmets really important. And it is in a short distance triathlon, the shorter the distance, the more aero you want to be. So that's the rule of thumb. The longer the distance, the more comfortable and the less overheating that you want to experience. And I suppose I'm talking events like Kona, Busselton, where it's generally hot, sometimes Cairns is hot and humid. A lot of the Asian circuits are all very humid. So you might have to sacrifice some aero for the humidity and the heat. So if you're in a race that's cooler, then by all means get the aero, wear the helmet, aero suit, helmet, et cetera. But on a hot course like Kona, if you're an age grouper who could potentially be riding between five and six and a half hours, you don't want to have a helmet on that has no airflow in it because you will overheat. And the minute you overheat, your heart rate spikes, which means you're into the red zone threshold. You're going to slow down. So I would much rather see someone sacrifice some speed. And let's face it, if you're an age group or trying to complete the race, the speed might be important for, you know, it might save you five minutes, but at the end of the day, you could overheat and cost yourself half an hour.

Yep, absolutely. Well, that covers the starting point of getting the right bike both for training and then by the time you get to the race, making sure you have the right bike set up. Take us through mistake number two. And that is a lack of specificity in training. And there's a lot that encompasses this.

Yeah. So again, we're trying to talk to people about, you know, sprint distance all the way through to Ironman, and it's almost like completely different sports. So your fitness base that I'm talking about for Ironman is vastly different to that for a sprint course. You know, you can get away with a lot doing a sprint or an Olympic. Once you start doing 70.3s and Ironman, the fitness base is really crucial to back end of the race. So, you know, the fitness is important in a sprint because you can hold power for 20k for maybe, you know, 25, 30 minutes. But it's the last 10 minutes where your fitness will help you hold the power. Well, it's the same in the Ironman. The bigger fitness level you have, the more you can sustain the power you want to hold for the entire race. So it comes back to, you know, not being fit enough to do an Ironman. What do I mean by that? I mean you need to be able to have the ability to handle five to six hours and not drop off off on your threshold power.

So not being fit enough, that principle applies no matter what distance, you need to be fit enough for that distance so that you can hold the power to the back end.

And that's the key. Fit enough for the intensity of the event.

So talk to me about that intensity because you speak about in training not having enough specificity in intensity or endurance.

Okay, so again, let's just take the extreme sprint distance. Ironman, the requirements of a sprint distance you would ride at your threshold, it might be 95 to 105% on the day. In an Ironman, you're going to ride between 70 and 75% of your threshold. So straight away you would think, okay, I need to do lots of work at that 95 to 100 to 105 for sprint triathlon. And I shouldn't do any of that in an Ironman. And that's actually a fair enough statement. But you want to ride faster in an Ironman. So if you just continually rode at 70 to 75% in your training the whole time, your FTP, your functional threshold power isn't going to rise. And why should that rise anyway? Well, the higher your power, the faster you're going to ride. So we need to do some training so that we can get from January to December's race where we started at an FTP at 200, we want to. And that equals 30Ks an hour. We want to improve our FTP to 250, which equals 35Ks an hour. So how do we do that? We just don't keep doing training at 70 to 75% because you're going to stay the same. So training at an intensity, it's going to improve your FTP and improve your fitness and improve the speed you're going to ride at, is what we're talking about with intensity.

So that is contradicted by the numbers that you need to know and have come the actual race day.

Yes. So we're training at ourselves to be as fast as possible for the distance and time of the race, but on race day we need to be racing at the numbers that we're capable of holding. There's a difference there.

Yeah. Yeah. So talk to me about knowing your numbers then from that perspective of both in training, what you're just talking about up to your actual race plan.

Okay, so in training, if, for example, we're going to do some high intensity training and some endurance training during the week and in our four sessions that we've talked about in our previous podcasts, so two of those sessions we want to ride between 95 to possibly 140% of our FTP number. And why is that? The range that we're picking. Well, the range we're picking for that is so that we can improve our FTP. And so in order to improve that, do intervals over your 100% effort and intervals of 110 to 120 in zone 5, 6 and 7, those areas that are going to really stress the body, but they're only short intervals, short powered intervals. Do you need that for an Ironman? Well, not in the actual race you don't, but in training to improve your FTP. That's what we're trying to achieve here. So that's two of the rides. The third ride would be an endurance ride where we're trying to get our base fitness up so that we can sustain this back end of our race. So doing building from three hours to four hours to five to six hour rides over a long period of time will get that fitness base. Giving yourself some strength efforts in the hills will build that fitness base that we're talking about all the time. And then doing one more session where you are racing at your race pace, whether that's Sprint, Olympic, half, Ironman or Ironman. So if you're doing Ironman, you need to do some specific training blocks of 20 minutes, 40 minutes, one hours at 70 to 75% and holding that pressure on the pedals, looking at your number and training to that number. And as your training months go by, that number might be 200 in week. In January it might be 205, in February might be 210. So as the months go by, you're actually riding at a different number and therefore your average speed will start to improve by the time you get to December. Hopefully you're riding at 250 for that 75%.

That's perfect. So that, that really summarizes that mistake of not being specific enough in your training for your event. But we also spoke a little bit about there, which that's my mistake because the last mistake triathletes make is not knowing their numbers in training. But specifically, you always talk about how many triathletes go into a race with the mistake of not having a specific race plan according to their numbers.

Yeah. So if you've tested yourself in January and you don't test yourself until December when the race comes. This is the great example of you're just guessing because you, you hope you can ride faster in December, but unless you've tested yourself a week out from the race, then you're still banking on the fact that you're riding at 200 watts. As our example, we're using from January. So you would go into the race riding, if you've trained really well, your new number should be 240, 250. So if you go into the race using 200 and you haven't tested yourself for that 8, 9, 10 months, then you're going to ride too slow for your ability. Sure. Your numbers will say you're riding at 70 to 75% because you haven't upgraded your FTP. So it's really important on race day to have your plan based around the most relevant number that you can possibly find, which is 10 days out, probably seven days out for some people. So should I be doing an FTP test just before my race? You bet. You should be doing that so that you come into that race knowing exactly the number you're capable of. So hopefully I get to the race day. I know 250 watts because I've done this test outside, not on an ergo. This is really important. I've done this test outside and we generally use a velodrome, or if you don't have a velodrome in your area and out and back, why does it have to be out and back and not one direction? Well, out and back means you're testing the wind because you might have a tailwind for one direction. And we're trying to test your power against your average speed so that we've got a really good race plan based on power and speed. They're the two key components. So out and back will give you headwind, tailwind or crosswind, Crosswind, whatever it is. So that'll give you an accurate speed description. The velodrome is the best because it's, you know, two or 300 meters round and the wind is only for four or five seconds each direction. So that will give us a 30Ks an hour in January is equal to 200 watts on the velodrome and same as the out and back course. So every time we test, you know, I know that if I'm riding 250 watts, that equals on the velodrome, 35ks an hour for a specific person. For a specific person. This is not generally for everybody. I'm just talking about Rider A. So Rider B might have to ride because he weighs, you know, 10 kilo heavier than Rider A. His 30Ks an hour might be 300 watts, not 200 because he's heavier, but the outcome is still the same. So we're trying to make sure that come race day we know and understand what our 75% is for the Ironman on the race day. It should be our number that we're targeting is 250 watts. And if the average speed is correct and it's 35Ks an hour, we can predict what 35Ks an hour over 180K is. And it might be 5 hours 24. That's easy to work that out. So you can go into the race knowing 250 watts at 35ks an hour. My time is around 5 hours 24. So it's like going into an exam with. With. With the cheat notes. And if as long as you execute that on the day, knowing that Information is going to give you the complete result within. And I've done this with almost every athlete that I coach. Within five minutes either side, things can happen. The wind can be worse. You know, you're not going fast enough on the downhills, you going too slow on the uphills, et cetera. But it is really close prediction.

So it seems like an obvious question. What is the disadvantage of not knowing the numbers like that? Because for some people, it can be overwhelming.

Yep, unbelievably good question because it brings up a whole range of things, such as at the start of the ride, I feel so good. Jared told me to ride at 7075 of my FTP, but I feel great. And, you know, 85 feels. 85% feels really easy. You know, say 250 watts is my target number for Rider A. But 280 feels really easy. Why? Because you're fresh, you've tapered, you're ready for this event. You're motivated. It's a race. The adrenaline is flowing and it feels fantastic. But the key to having a race plan is not to do that, because we know that you can only sustain this number for 5 hours 24. We've already trained to that actual time. So riding above the numbers is going to be sabotaging your race. So you should see most of the field riding past you if you're riding specifically to your race plan. So you want to be in a bubble. You want to be letting people zoom past you because, you know, take all their numbers down because you'll see them in four, five hours time, and that'll be such a great feeling when they're falling apart because they've ridden too hard and they're riding by feel without having specific data to race to. And you're just consistently riding the same pace the whole way through. And because it's a race, you want to get better at the end. And in a triathlon, it's different to a bike race. You don't really want to push a PB at the end. You want to stick to your numbers. Why? Because you have to run a marathon. And sure, I can go in and say, how fantastic was my ride? I rode 4 hours 20 when my race plan was 4 hours 30, and yet I've improved it by 10 minutes. That's fantastic. My run race plan was 3 hours, and now I've just run 3 hours 40 because I'm so exhausted by pushing 10 minutes faster on the bike. So, no, it's not okay to use the swimming and the ride to do PBS because you still have to run. It's not a two event race, it's a three event race. So having the power data will prevent you from sabotaging and overcooking the race. That is the key component that people must understand and that is the reason why we have that information to stop you from riding too fast. Because if you ride by feeling, you'll absolutely ride faster. Because you feel great. As we spoke about before.

Yeah. So as always it applies no matter what the distance. Because even if it's a sprinter or Olympic.

Yeah.

If you're feeling fresh at the start and you push 350 watts because you feel good when your target should be 300 watts, your last five or 10 minutes or 15 minutes, you're going to blow up and you'll probably lose more time.

Yep. And that's a really great point. And I've always said to all the athletes I coach, it doesn't matter whether you're doing a five by five minute effort training session and in the first five minute interval you're supposed to ride at 250 watts and you do the first one because you feel great at 300, guess what's going to happen to the next five intervals? They're going to progressively be worse. If you're doing an FTP test and you start with an ambition and your, your last FTP test was 250 watts, I want to ride 280. So you start off at 280, guess what? You're not going to improve 30 watts in the first five minutes and then be able to sustain that for the rest of the 20 minutes. It's no different. In an ironman, don't start off 20 or 30 watts higher than you're capable of for five hours. So it doesn't matter whether it's a five minute interval, a 20 minute interval or a five hour interval, you still have to have the same plan, which is ride to the number and try to ride better as you go.

So to finish off with, tell me why, if you were trying to convince a triathlete, why they have to have a race plan because they just want to ride by feel. We've spoken about the disadvantages, but why would you say to them what is the biggest, biggest benefit of doing this? Why should you follow a specific race plan?

I suppose the obvious thing is because you can predict the outcome and you can base your whole day around, yes, I'm going to swim one hour, I'm going to ride five, 24. And according to my training I should be able to run three hours, they're the plans I've got in place. So if I don't stick to that plan, then I'm chancing my luck and it's a guess. And I'm not one who likes to gamble in an event that's nine or 10 hours. And I don't even want to do that in a sprint race. I've done all this training. The numbers don't lie. So there's a key saying. I say to people a lot, ambition and ability. Don't get those two things confused. What you want to do and what you're capable of doing. You need to have them reasonably close. So give yourself ambition of trying to improve. Say your last, say your last PB in an Olympic distance was 2 hours 10. You really want to do a 2 hour 5. So, yeah, sure, do things in your plan that'll enable you ride the numbers that will enable you to do a two or three minute faster bike ride. And if you, if you make a mistake, so be it. But you've had a crack, but you still got your ambition and ability really close to. But the people who just go in with no plan, they're just gambling at, you know, on feel. And I suppose one of the things I want to point out here is if you're a professional triathlete and you're racing other guys, you've got to make decisions all day about whether I'm going to stick with the race, there's guys going up the road, or am I going to stick with my plan? So there, that's an obvious example of really making decisions based on, you know, I'm here to race, but I know that someone's riding up the road too fast and it's unsustainable. Do I risk following their race plan or do I stick with my race plan? And you know, it's really more crucial in the run and you've either got the ability to stay with the run or you haven't on the bike. It's probably important that you try and stay with the main pack. I'm talking professionals here. But you could still blow your race up by racing too hard on the bike and then getting off and running like a dog. As an age grouper, you've got to decide, are you there to complete the event or compete in the event. You're competing against others or just competing against yourself. So if you choose to compete for a podium again, you're the same situation as a professional. You know the guys in your age group, you know their strengths. If You've done your homework on the bike, we're talking specifically and across the race. But on the bike, if you see someone race past you and you know in history that they've been a two or three better bike rider than you, if you start to join in their pace, you could possibly run like a dog because you've raced too hard, your threshold spiked, your heart rate, and all of a sudden your race is done. So you've still got to make decisions based on ability and the competitiveness of the race.

Absolutely. I think that's a great way to finish. And I think that last point is a whole other topic itself in ambition, versability, and what to do in a race. But maybe we'll talk about that in another episode. But that wraps up today's. Unless you had one more point.

Yeah, look, one of the things is that we were going to touch on, and it is a whole other topic, your nutrition for an ironman, that can absolutely wreck your race. If you're the fittest person, you've got the best race plan, but you don't even take any notice of nutrition, the other two things will become totally irrelevant because you will die a thousand deaths. So we want to talk race plan with nutrition, but that's probably for another day.

Yeah. Okay. Well, to be honest, let's just talk about it now, just to finish off. Okay, talk to me about practicing your nutrition for the bike leg.

All right. For the bike leg. Come race day, whatever you do on race day, if you do something you've never done in training, that is your number one mistake. You are going to have a shocking day. You gotta find out, number one, what is the nutrition on the course that the race organizers are providing? Is it the same as what you have got in your training plan? If it isn't and you think that their nutrition is better than yours, practice it in training so that on race day you can use the race organization's nutrition at the. At the aid stations. If you don't think it's better than yours, then you obviously in an ironman, you would have to have a special needs bag for your nutrition to be up the road. But if it's a sprint distance, Olympic distance or half ironman, you possibly get away with having it all on your equipment as you're going on your bike or on your run bag. So it's really important that you have practiced all of the scenarios in training. And a lot of people get a different feel in race day because the intensity and the duration aren't the same as you might have established in a training session. So it's really good that you practice some almost race like days where you are really putting yourself against the clock. And I do this occasionally and I have done this in my own training because practicing nutrition when you're not doing the same duration intensity isn't the same thing that's going to happen to you on race day. So you need to actually do it in some minor races or your own staged races that you're, you know, you're going to meet some mates and you're going to meet at the local beach and park your car with your bike there, do the swim, get out, you know, take your time in transition, get on the bike and all leave together and race each other and then put your bike back in the car when you get back and then race each other in the run. That's, that's a race simulation that you're going to have and the nutrition is going to be tested there and then at that particular level of intensity and the duration. So it's really important. So the number one thing is you need to find out what your stomach can tolerate and therefore be able to be absorbed during the day. And if you haven't practiced that in training and in race conditions, come race day, you could end up, no matter how well prepared you are, not being able to absorb the nutrition. Especially in an ironman race. It's not as big a mistake in a sprint or Olympic. But the absorption that has to happen in a race is the key to enabling you to continue the pace that you want to go at. It's like having two particular cars. One's a Ferrari, one's a beat up old shithe Corolla. If you don't put petrol in either of them, they won't go. It doesn't matter how expensive or how fit you are or how under trained or how cheap the car is, if you don't put the fuel in, they're not going to go. So that's obvious to everybody, but people still don't take much notice of it.

Yeah. So practicing that in training under race like conditions is the key. Yep, perfect. That's a great way to finish. Thank you again for listening to this episode. If you want to download our expert secrets cheat sheet, please go to getfastpodcast.com and download that there. Also please go to itunes and leave a five star review if you are enjoying the episodes. It really helps other triathletes and cyclists like you find the podcast and enjoy it as well. Again, thank you very much for listening. See you next time.